Rhubarb martinis and gougeres

I'm a big fan of the breakfast martini (gin and marmalade, possibly with some extra Cointreau or Grand Marnier) and last night a couple of friends came over to try a new variation on the theme - breakfast martinis made with rhubarb jam!

Beforehand, I was wondering if the whole project would be scuppered by the difficulty of finding rhubarb jam, so imagine my delight when at Marylebone Farmers' Market last Sunday I came across a stall selling this - perfect for the job.Three tablespoons of jam, three large slugs of Plymouth gin and some ice cubes combined in a shaker was enough to produce two of these:

I was very pleased at how they turned out, and the jam combined well with the gin to give a smoothie-like texture, whereas often the marmalade in a breakfast martini doesn't mix easily and you end up with a top layer of neat gin and a bottom layer of marmalade and orange peel.

Gougeres fresh from the oven

To accompany the martinis, I made some gougeres which went down a treat. I also made an ipod playlist with some old favourites and some new stuff. I'm not sure if the neighbours appreciated the occasional belting-out of a Belinda Carlisle chorus, but given that next door's toddler woke me up at 5 a.m. playing the recorder, the occasional revenge karaoke session seems only fair. This kiki is marvellous!

Beaune 1er cru Les Coucherias, 2008, J Claude Rateau

This was another bottle that G brought back from Paris, and I'm informed that it cost 25 euros in Monoprix. Neither of us had heard of this producer but we do like our white Beaunes so I was looking forward to trying it.

It was a pale gold colour and we decanted it just before drinking. It had been in the fridge all day so was on the cold side and I had trouble getting much on the nose, although I detected a certain florality and G got citrus. On the palate, it brought an immediate big smile to my face and was declared a 10 right away. It was precise, poised and singing - beautiful and perfectly balanced.

If we had looked it up in Coates beforehand, we might have had higher expectations as Rateau merits a star and the domaine is biodynamic. That makes sense. The Aux Coucherias vineyard is slightly higher up the slope from Aux Cras and Teurons so it's in a great location.

Sadly, Rateau doesn't seem to have any UK representation, but if I find myself in a Monoprix any time in the future I'll be looking out for it. Further confirmation that of the informal rule that producers beginning with R tend to be excellent (Roulot, Ramonet, Raveneau...) Lovely.

Mercurey 1er cru Clos des Myglands 2003, Domaine de la Framboisiere

It has been indicated to me that I haven't been writing enough about wine on here. I'm not going to apologise for writing about cheese and other nice things as I'm hardly to blame for the fact that G has failed to set up his companion blog. We came up with the name Odyssey du Chevre the other night which is hard to beat in the pretentiousness stakes, so really now there is no excuse. 

Anyway, back to wine. G brought back this half of Mercurey from his recent trip to Paris. I'm not sure which wine merchant or supermarket it came from but believe it cost around 8 euros or so. It's a premier cru we haven't had before and is a monopole so an especially good find. I'd never heard of Domaine de la Framboisiere but the label design looked familiar and the back label indicated that this is an offshoot of Domaine Faiveley - it's the name they're giving to their Cote Chalonnaise wines. I'm not sure I like the name as it's difficult not to think of raspberries when you see that on the label, and I don't want to have preconceptions like that. 

2003 is a controversial year as it was unusually hot, and many of the wines have a baked character and are big, sweet and jammy. I didn't like the vintage initially, but changed my mind later, or perhaps with age the wines improved. But this Mercurey was not what we were expecting at all. It looked nice, dark and glossy, but on the nose we got black fruits (no sign of raspberries!) and on the palate it was surprisingly restrained and could only be described as austere, with savoury flavours such as cocoa. If it was like this in '03, we wondered what on earth it would be like in a normal year. But it was perfectly enjoyable, rated a high 7, and was given the accolade from my student days: "good with burgers".

This is the fifth Mercurey we've tasted during the Premier Cru Project. We've given three a score of 7 and two a score of 8; I suspect that Mercurey will probably never rank higher than this, although I'd be delighted to be proved wrong.

Trou Calling

While in New York a few years ago I was thrilled to get a chance to watch Tru Calling, a TV show starring Eliza Dushku who had become a firm favourite playing the edgy Faith in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In Tru Calling, she played a character called Tru. I'm not making this up. Perhaps not surprisingly, it was terrible and I think I gave up on it after about 5 minutes.

Tru Calling immediately sprang to mind when at Beaune market a couple of years ago I discovered Trou du Cru, which is a mini Epoisses. For a short glorious period you could also find it in Waitrose although only at about five times the price of Beaune market.

G was in Paris last weekend and visited Pascal Beillevaire, a famous cheese shop, where he got these goodies - a Selles sur Cher, a Clacbitou, some Tomme de Chevre and lastly, a gorgeous ripe little Trou. The latter was the best example of its type I've ever had and as G has not yet set up his companion blog (Amateur du Fromage) I felt a photo was in order to commemorate the occasion.

Now that's what I call a cheeseboard!

The good news is that Pascal Beillevaire now has a London outpost, between Knightsbridge and South Kensington, so a pilgrimage will shortly be in order.

While researching this, I came across a blog of interest: Good Food Shops. I enjoyed their piece on the Covered Market in Oxford and it's good to know that many of the shops I used to visit during my student days are still going strong. It also brought the Gazzano's to my attention, an Italian deli on the Farringdon Road which I didn't know about but apparently sells a good range of Italian booze. I hope this doesn't just mean 20 different types of Limoncello. And it has added further ammunition to the case for paying a visit to Maltby Street market which I gather is the "new Borough Market". I gave up on the old Borough Market a few years ago so an equivalent which isn't full of tourists getting in the way - cue Kylie - and people using double-buggies as battering rams would be welcome.

Over the Jubilee weekend, while G was in Paris, I ventured to Middle England to visit my parents, the big stripy cat and the small deaf cat. When I got back on Monday I made some meringues which I took along to a friend's house on Tuesday where we ate Eton Mess while watching highlights of the Jubilee concert and making bitchy comments about how well various people had aged (or not). Here it is before we got stuffing our faces. Everything looks lovely on A's beautiful blue-green plates, especially the macaroons that C brought along, an inspired touch!

The taste of an English summer - meringues, white chocolate chunks, strawberries, macaroons, raspberries and whipped cream. Mmm!

Domaine Emmanuel Giboulot dinner, 19th May

The sports fans were certainly out in force last Saturday. Having encountered the boisterous Blackpool fans on the way to the vegetarian cookery class in the morning, it was my turn to meet the West Ham fans on the walk over to Marylebone for dinner. They surged past us in a flood of blue and burgundy stripes but seemed calm and I had no idea that their team had in fact won until someone told me afterwards. Occasionally they were intermingled with someone wearing a blazer and an MCC tie who we assumed had been to Lords for the cricket. It wasn't too difficult to tell the difference between the football fans and the cricket fans!

The occasion was a dinner organised by ACC under the auspices of the Burgundy Portfolio to taste the wines of Domaine Emmanuel Giboulot, one of my favourite producers. G and I arrived at the Perseverance and made our way upstairs where ACC greeted us with a glass of 2011 Terres Burgondes blanc. This was clearly very young and later it emerged that it had been in bottle for just two and a half months. It had high acidity and apparently was made from pinot beurot, not chardonnay. A few minutes later, to great excitement, a plate of gougeres emerged from the kitchen! These disappeared in approximately 0.003 seconds but it was early in the evening so my reactions were still lightning speed and I was able to get a photo in. 

Gougeres! But not as big as mine...

Eventually, after what sounded like a gruelling journey, Emmanuel himself turned up and we sat down to dinner. With the starter of rabbit and hazelnut terrine, we had the 2010 Cote de Beaune Combe D'Eve. This is made from chardonnay grapes, and was more my kind of thing! It had a lovely, rich nose and was big and complex yet still with the trademark Giboulot elegance. It's not cheap but it is seriously good white burgundy.

Although I've visited the domaine twice, the proceedings have been in French and I'm sure I've missed quite a lot of what Emmanuel said, but what has always come across has been his passion for winemaking and also his friendliness and warmth. This time we were fortunate to have both ACC and O to translate. Emmanuel explained that all of his wines are biodynamic (and there was some discussion of what that means exactly, which I won't go into here) and that he doesn't try to do the same thing every year, but aims to express the character of the vintage. 2010 was a challenging year - but this wine definitely delivered. I was delighted to discover I'd already got some on order, she says in a self-congratulatory tone.

Next up were some reds which accompanied a dish of roast charolais beef, baby onions, mushrooms, greens and dijon cream. Compliments to the chef on the beef which was fantastic. First we had the 2008 Terres Burgondes rouge and the 2010 Bourgogne Hautes-Cotes de Nuits "Sous le Mont". I bought a case of the 2008 Terres Burgondes which arrived a while back. G and I have probably had about half of it now, and discovered there is some variation in it - sometimes it's fresh and fruity, other times more earthy. This time I thought it had lively cherry fruit. Emmanuel apparently hadn't tried it for a while and said he liked its tartness.

I was very impressed with the Hautes-Cotes de Nuits which had been in bottle since September. I didn't make proper notes, but it seemed softer and perhaps more approachable than the Terres Burgondes, and I snaffled a case to tuck away.

Extremely runny Epoisses

The cheese course consisted of some excellently runny Epoisses. It was so good that Baron McG of Croque-Epoisses wondered afterwards whether there might be some more to be found somewhere (he has a separate Epoisses stomach and is used to putting away at least half a cheese in one go) but we decided not to attempt to raid the kitchen on this occasion. There was also a lengthy conversation about the meaning of "affine" and whether it means "maturing" or "washing" in marc de bourgogne in the case of Epoisses. One person said that it's "when it's so old that it goes runny" which seems quite plausible.
 
With the Epoisses we had the 2010 Beaune Lulune and the 2008 Beaune. Apparently the Lulune is up a hill and there was something about a Roman village fountain that was apparently highly significant but I missed why exactly. Anyway, it all sounds very romantic! This wine was light, delicate and pure and probably needed a few years. As for the 2008 Beaune, I have several bottles of it on the rack here at A de V Towers and it has been giving us a great deal of pleasure. It's a treat and definitely a wine to save for the weekend when we can give it a full couple of hours in decanter. 

I enjoyed the evening very much and it was great to have the man himself there to talk us through his wines. Thanks to ACC for organising it. Blogtastique!

Veggie cooking class at Claridges, 19th May

After enjoying last year's Summer Party Masterclass at Claridges, where we found out what were THE season's canapes and cocktails - I quote the promotional literature - Mum and I went on a vegetarian cooking class which was held last Saturday.

We met up at Euston where we survived a lively encounter with some Blackpool fans on their way to the Championship play-off final at Wembley (I had no idea who they were at the time, but have subsequently done my homework). They were clad in orange shirts singing "Where the fuck is Leicester Square?!" at the tops of their voices at 10.30 in the morning, so moving swiftly on we made our way to Brook Street for a quick whirl round Fenwicks before arriving at Claridges. Here we were shown through to the Foyer area for coffee and biscuits. There was no patisserie, which was a shame as I'd skipped breakfast to enable me to pig out on pain au chocolat. Oh well. We met the other people on the course - there were 7 of us altogether, including two blokes - and a lively conversation about bell-ringing ensued before we were whisked downstairs to the butchery room (the irony! but there was no meat in evidence) and seated round a rectangular table.

Once again the demonstration was given by Martin Nail, who's the head chef of Claridges. I remember being confused last year as the restaurant at Claridges is a Gordon Ramsay operation, but it's completely separate from the hotel kitchen and Martin isn't in the least bit shouty. There followed about three hours of lovely foodie discussion as various dishes were cooked in front of us. This included a demonstration of how to make a foam using a soda siphon, and the foamy pureed peas were indeed delicious. A lot of time was spent making pasta with a pasta machine, which was of less interest to me as there's no way I'll be making my own pasta in the near future, but it tasted jolly good. There was an opportunity for audience participation at this point but Mum and I preferred to watch, which was fine.

Throughout the various demonstrations, ingredients were passed round for us to look at, and occasionally a plate and teaspoon would appear and we would get to taste something. Martin gave us lots of tips and I made plenty of notes in the recipe booklet. I was interested to hear his experience of visiting Noma, who are coming to do a pop-up restaurant in Claridges for 10 days during the Olympics. I got an email about this a few weeks ago and G and I dithered about booking but eventually didn't - anyway, we wouldn't have got in because Martin said they were fully booked within an hour of the email going out. A snip at £195 per head!

After the demonstration, we were served lunch which was 2 courses with a glass of vino (a choice of red or white Rhone) plus coffee and petits fours. Eventually, aware that Dad was waiting for us, we made our excuses and left shortly before 5.00. Not a bad way to spend five and a half hours. Maybe it was because the mix of people was different and included some who had been to almost all the different classes, but this year the atmosphere seemed more relaxed and I was able to whip out my phone to get some photos.

Asparagus with almond puree (secret ingredient: amaretto!)

Aubergine tart with a courgette lattice - a real showstopper

Pasta thing with pea puree

Lunch is served!

Pudding

Petits fours (these weren't all for me, honest)

SPNS dinner, 18th May

Last weekend was one of those weekends where, after what seems like months of doing nothing in particular, suddenly there's a whirlwind of activity.

First up was the Swiss Pinot Noir Society which met at the Savile Club on 18th May. There were seven of us this time, as P's wife joined us, so we tasted more wines than usual, but had less of each.

We started with an Austrian sparkling red from P, called Strohmeier Rot Sekt. I have to hand it to P that he does come up with the strangest wines very much in the spirit of the Society! Unfortunately, red sparklers are not my bag and I only managed a couple of small sips before bailing out. The other verdicts were marginally more favourable but the similarity to fizzy Ribena was remarked upon and most found it interesting but not something they'd be particularly keen to have again. At least "undissolved paracetamol" was not mentioned this time!

Moving swiftly on, P presented a 2011 pedro ximinez from Chile. I wasn't the only one who had no idea that pedro ximinez came in a different style from the extraordinary sweet and gloopy sherry. For me, this was aromatic and went down a treat after the first wine (= it was cold and white!) but I suspect it was the sort of thing that would get boring after the first glass. D made an unusually sharp comment: "like a weak sauvignon blanc" and generally it was regarded as a little superficial but not bad. T said "This is fun; in the founding spirit of the SPNS". When P revealed that it cost less than £4 we were all pleasantly surprised.

We moved upstairs at this point to have dinner and it was on to the serious wines of the evening. First up was a Nuits St Georges 1er Cru Clos de la Marechale 2005 from Jacques-Frederic Mugnier, provided by ACC. I wasn't familiar with this producer but we could immediately tell that this was serious stuff, very classy, rich and quite heavy, with a great finish. Everyone rated it very highly and G and I both gave it a 10 - hurrah! The only debate was over whether it would improve with more time. P said it was infanticide to drink it now but my end of the table disagreed, feeling it was on the plateau and wouldn't get worse with age but wouldn't get better either. Quite honestly, I don't see how it could. Have just done some homework on Mugnier and see that a certain wine merchant has the 2008 for £69 - ouch. Thanks to ACC for sharing this with us!

Then there was a rose provided by T, from the Loire, called Les Nuages 2009. G and I both found peaches going on in this, and D got strawberries. It was unexpectedly fruity which led us to speculate that perhaps it wasn't actually pinot noir. P wrote something provocative in the book about rose wines being girly and pointless. He's entitled to his opinion but I don't agree.

Not very Chassagne

After that it was on to the reds, starting with my Chassagne-Montrachet 1er cru La Maltroie 1999 from Domaine Amiot. I got three bottles of this at auction and this was the last one. It was generally well-received but once again didn't seem very typical of Chassagne, being big and rich and with black fruit. Still only an 8.

Blockbuster!

D provided us with yet another rarity from the US, this time a 1996 Napa Valley Zinfandel called Edizione Pennino from Niebaum-Coppola. This reduced the usually loquacious T to a monosyllable - "Wow!" I found it lovely, soft and mature with big blackberry fruit. G said "an honour and a pleasure to drink" which sums it up very well. When are we going to raid D's cellar in the US?

Sadly, the Inverse Law of Labels did not apply in this case

Then we had G's wine, Smerenie 2009 from Romania.This claimed to be a mixture of shiraz, (syrah surely?), pinot noir and dornfelder. Perhaps the New World-isation of the grape name was a sign of things to come, as this was your typical "international" wine, completely failing to display any sense of terroir. It was also incredibly alcoholic and basically a headache in a glass. G wrote his comment in the book first and seemed to like it at that stage, but I think we all started to get diminishing returns quite quickly.

P provided a third wine, the hilariously-named "Rikiki - Elixir des Anges" which was apparently a 15% Julienas. Was this actually from Beaujolais? Once again, it was seriously weird, but interesting. "What the hell is that? Late harvest gamay? WTF?" wrote G. Some detected prunes and fruit jelly while I found it like Ribena with apple. We all thought it got better with time and chilling, and when T tried it with his blue cheese, that was declared to be a good combination. So, it grew on us, but whether it could ever be described as the elixir of angels is, frankly, debatable.

Finally, I'd brought along a bottle of Pacherenc de Vic Bilh but sadly this turned out to be corked, so it was just as well I'd brought the Chassagne too. I've noticed that the corked rate seems to be high for me at SPNS dinners - is it sod's law or just that I'm taking more risks than I usually would, in a hopeless attempt to beat D who always wins? Either way, memo to self to bring 2 bottles in future.

A mixed bag

My prizes of the evening: best white goes to ACC for the Nuits St Georges, best red goes to D (of course) for the Napa Valley Zin, and most in the spirit of SPNS goes to P for his trio of curiosities. A bientôt!